here’s our (short) conversation that we had about the topic on twitter (all of the links i included in these tweets can be found in the previous post):

still waiting for a reply….
_____

update 02/02: i wanted to double-check that figure i gave for 70% cousin marriages in pakistanis in the u.k. just to make sure i remembered right (i have been known to remember incorrectly before! (~_^) ).

the correct figure is (very close to what i recalled): 67% for pakistanis in bradford [page 10 – opens pdf]. that includes first cousins, first cousins-once-removed, and second cousins.

there’s another figure of 46.9% for pakistanis in birmingham, but that’s just first cousins. the figure would likely be quite a bit higher if first cousins-once-removed and second cousins were included.

no mention of double-first-cousin unions. there’s probably some of them, too.
_____

another update 02/02: i checked the following article (the one about bradford) — The frequency of consanguineous marriage among British Pakistani [pdf] — to see if there was anything about double-first-cousin marriages. there were none, but there had been some in the grandparent’s generation [pgs. 187-89] — 100 women were randomnly sampled:

“Fifty five of the women interviewed were married to first cousins. All four possible types of cousin marriage occurred, with the frequencies given in table 3 [mostly fzd (20) and then fbd (17) – h.chick]. No double first cousin marriages were reported in this generation. Nine women were married to first cousins once removed, three to second cousins, and three to more distant relatives (one first cousin twice removed, on second cousin once removed, one third cousin). Thirteen were married with the ‘Biraderi’, a term describing the wider family group. Some of these husbands would be distant relatives, some relatives only by marriage, and some simply originating from the same locality and social group. Only 17 women definitely had completely unrelated husbands….

“In this group of [the respondent’s] grandparents there was a maximum of 33 first cousin marriages, with more marriages (24) among the Biraderi and more (30) to unrelated partners. [there were also 5 double-first-cousin marriages in that generation per table 2. – h.chick]…

“Table 4 shows that the pattern of inbreeding in the population is not uniform: unrelated couples are more likely to have unrelated parents, while married couples of first cousins more often have closely related parents.

“The frequency of consanguineous marriage is thought to be falling in most populations as a result of social change and increased mobility…. By contrast, among British Pakistanis the coefficient of inbreeding seems to have increased in a single generaion, from about 0.024 to 0.0375, a figure approaching the highest reported for human populations.“

07:12 PM on 01/28/2013
As well as the genetic effects, there is this:
“By fostering intense family loyalties and strong nepotistic urges, inbreeding makes the development of civil society more difficult. Many Americans have heard by now that Iraq is composed of three ethnic groups — the Kurds of the north, the Sunnis of the center, and the Shi’ites of the south. Clearly, these ethnic rivalries would complicate the task of ruling reforming Iraq. But that’s just a top-down summary of Iraq’s ethnic make-up. Each of those three ethnic groups is divisible into smaller and smaller tribes, clans, and inbred extended families — each with their own alliances, rivals, and feuds. And the engine at the bottom of these bedeviling social divisions is the oft-ignored institution of cousin marriage.

“The fractiousness and tribalism of Middle Eastern countries have frequently been remarked. In 1931, King Feisal of Iraq described his subjects as ‘devoid of any patriotic idea, connected by no common tie, giving ear to evil; prone to anarchy, and perpetually ready to rise against any government whatever.’ The clannishness, corruption, and coups frequently observed in countries such as Iraq appears to be in tied to the high rates of inbreeding.” https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/cousin-marriage-conundrum-addendum/

i think places like huffington’s post, kos etc are likely to jump on the bandwagon of this for what they think are secular or anti-christian or pro-diversity reasons without realising the consequences of what they are supporting.

another aspect is it leads to the need to control women more. if a woman has to marry a particular cousin then it leads to the need to prevent them getting enamoured of someone they randomly meet and honor-killing if that exclusion tactic doesn’t work.

That was a brave effort – I admire your ability to remain logical, but ….think about this:

guns-germs-and-steel

disease-incest-einstein

This is not about logic, ideas, nor even rhetoric. These are memes designed to lodge in the subconscious of the majority; people who will not read any hypotheses and will only ever engage with a media headline, and who respond to ‘facts’ on an emotional not an intellectual level.

The second is even more ‘subtle’ than the former. Guns-germs and steel is an overt criticism of European civilization. What Younus has done is present/imagine the European reasoning opposing S.Asian culture – so essentially he wants to promote S.Asian culture, and yet has managed to do that by creating a meme that condemns European culture. [It’s the mirroring technique, which I’ve seen a lot on internet discussions about such subjects, and other techniques used include deflection, spurious comparison, and the holy-hand in front of the face.]

These hypotheses have been structured around the meme-jingle. People from essentially Middle-East heritage, with thousands of years history of trading, understand the role of communication. In the UK, we are told daily that Knowledge-Benchmarks-Classification are the old (European) ways and the new (Western) ways are Communication-Preference-Branding. There is no logic in a relativist society, popular support is all that is required – and that’s democratic right?

You have been very gracious so I don’t want to try your patience but I think the UK is further along this route than the US [because we have the ECHR, which has successfully banned opposition to de-Europeanisation]

But….(bearing in mind my incomplete reading of your blog), the ‘meme-jingle’ that I get from this blog is Manorialism-Outbreeding-IQ – it’s not going to stick in anyone’s subconscious. I asked myself what would be a better jingle. I came up with Open-Civic-Science – it’s catchy. It would require defining Open vs. Closed Family Structures from the start. That would also add value to the hypothesis and to your specific role in creating it. How Europe became open-structured does not need to be in the meme, imo. What open family structures have produced is the important message. Even without controversial theories such as I.F., simple (clever) Mendelian genetics (relatedness) speaks volumes and I think is something that most Europeanistas have never thought about.

I would avoid reference to IQ. I don’t see it as that useful to the overall argument. [In relation to cousin-marriage for example, my overwhelming concern is for the children in the UK suffering very unpleasant adolescent-onset degenerative birth defects]. Also, ‘IQ’ can easily be conflated with ‘Intelligence’ and the discussion disappears down a tangent. IQ _test scores_ cannot, they are what they are.

I wrote this (below), for my own interest (it may not even be accurate!), I’m certainly not suggesting that you change your inimitable style, I just want to offer ideas for you to adopt/reject as you so choose.

Yours, Kate

Modern, open family structures are typical of NW Europe, N America and Australia, in which girls choose their own partner and marry outside the extended family (partner-marriage). Conversely in traditional, closed family structures, girls are expected or obliged to marry their cousin (cousin-marriage).

Closed marriages can follow one of two routes. Either a girl is expected to marry her mother’s-brother’s son or, her father’s-brother’s son. The latter is typical of Arab societies and those societies colonized during Islamic expansion, principally SW Asia and N Africa. Mother’s-brother’s son marriage is the norm in most parts of China but may be breaking down in the dense metropoli.

The distinction is important because in Arab families the paternal line is shared by male relatives horizontally across generations as well as vertically from grandfather to grandson. This represents the highest level of relatedness of the three family structures with male cousins necessarily sharing at least ? of their chromosomes.

The hypothesis suggests that the development of civic society, and the ensuing scientific revolution, were able to come about because the open marriage structure in NW Europe decreased the relatedness of members of the society. Conversely, it is suggested that the increased relatedness of men in Arab societies may contribute to an overall higher recorded level of aggression between groups of men from different paternal lines, tribes.

Considering the fondness that most of the HuffPo crowd probably have for portraying southerners as semi-retarded inbred hicks, it’s a little ironic that they published Younus’s piece. Especially when widespread cousin marriage in the middle east probably contributes to much of making the hill folk portrayed in “Deliverance” look civilized by comparison.

The nice thing about hbd*chick’s views on this subject is that they are scientific, well-grounded in the very latest evolutionary thinking. This is bound to have an impact on an audience that prides itself on its secular, rational approach to life. Maybe not the author of a piece like faheem younus’s, or even most of his commenters, but to many of the readers, if not immediately then over the long-term. It is so easy to forget who your real audience is.

@georgia resident – “Considering the fondness that most of the HuffPo crowd probably have for portraying southerners as semi-retarded inbred hicks, it’s a little ironic that they published Younus’s piece.”

oh, but the lefties like to see what they want to see and ignore the rest. think of the defeaning silence of most of teh feminists when it comes to burkas and honor killings, etc., etc. not to mention this sort of stuff (don’t get me started). diversity trumps feminism, apparently.

someone did leave a comment @huffpost about all the inbred southerners. *rolleyes* like you say, the degree of inbreeding amongst southerners is NOTHING in comparison to the middle east/south asia/arabia.

@g.w. – “i think places like huffington’s post, kos etc are likely to jump on the bandwagon of this for what they think are secular or anti-christian or pro-diversity reasons without realising the consequences of what they are supporting.”

This is not about logic, ideas, nor even rhetoric. These are memes designed to lodge in the subconscious of the majority….”

good insight. yeah, i think he was trying to go for a catchy phrasing there.

@big nose kate – “Manorialism-Outbreeding-IQ”

well, kinda. although, personally, i’m not all that interested in iq (yes, i know — but it’s interested in me! (~_^) ).

the triple-meme i’m interested in (i warn you — this will NOT be catchy ’cause i’m not very good at that sort of thing) is: outbreeding-reciprocal altruism-civic society. or something like that. like i said, not very catchy. (~_^)

to try to blend your meme and mine: open-reciprocal-civic. i kinda like that! (^_^)

“This is bound to have an impact on an audience that prides itself on its secular, rational approach to life. ‘
__________________________________________________________

Are you kidding? Surely you haven’t thought this through. The Left latches onto anything they think “new,” anything they perceive flies in the face of traditional Western society or mores. They’d like you to think it’s their open-mindedness that accounts for their ready embrace of that which is alien to Western/American society when, in truth, it’s simply their way of thumbing noses. They are usually those living out some form of revenge for slights in childhood…or perceived slights.

They aren’t the rational people you seem to think they are. They are uninterested in the testing of hypotheses for fear of what the results might show, unwilling to consider empirical data. They are, in essense, intellectual hicks. They hide behind degrees, allowed to do so by an academic world and a press comprised of the same clowns.

A farmer with no high school degree…hell, his 12 year old son or daughter…knows more about the realities of HBD and the consequences of breeding patterns and the consequences of ignoring biology than the degreed idiots who frequent places like the HuffPo or Slate or the Daily Kos and the rest of the Creationist LEFT.

@ hbd chick “the degree of inbreeding amongst southerners is NOTHING in comparison to the middle east/south asia/arabia.” Yes. That would be right.

I have a problem with the fundamental assumption of the inbreeding – outbreeding debate. At least it gets debated here, eh? The problem is that it purports to cover the field. I don’t see that as being true. I see five positions:

1) Incest. Marrying siblings. Little data. I assume it is so destructive as to be unstable.

2) Inbreeding. That would be something like the obstinate maintaining of first cousing marriages over many genrations. My own data is that this is destructive. Fertility suffers. Also you have provided data that society suffers and the children suffer biologically. This puzzles me from a genetic standpoint. Bad genes should be getting eliminated regularly so I suspect that the damage is being done not by genetic effects but epigenetic effects. At all events this is a definable mating strategy. But let me point out that it is inherently stable. All the bad things do tend to keep the popultation from growing exponentially, which has known problems. Also, it is easily reversible in a single generation if another strategy is desired.

3) Optimal outbreeding as defined by Patrick Bateson. That would be like third or fouth cousins, I would guess. That’s as calculated by counting up ancestors ten generations before as Icelandic data has been analyzed. The social down side should be ameliorated to a certain extent. But the condition is inherently unstable. This is the way to get exponential growth. If you don’t think that’s a problem consider the American Indians. They lost a continent that they had (imho) turned into a garden. They were brilliant fighters, knew the territory, generally were as well armed as the Europeans (Windson Churchhill said the bow in trained hands was superior to the gun until Gettysburg and it wasn’t long after that that the Indians had breech loaders; a Seminole could reload a muzzle loader much faster than a European – two steps instead of three) and had everything to lose. But they had two children while the Europeans had a dozen. They were buried under an avalanche of white flesh.

4) Let’s call it balanced breeding. This I take it is more or less the Southern and the manorial level, averaging something like sixth or seventh cousins, again by the Icelandic definition. It permits widespread social grace, a stable population and romantic love.

5) Frank outbreeding. That would be something like the obstinate maintaining of tenth or more marriages over a few genrations. Kin marriages are seen as repulsive. Cousin marriages are banned because otherwise we would lose our liberty … sorry, strike that last. Fertilty is so low that the condition is unstable. People begin to have social values that are so self destructive as to seem utterly mad. I suspect that it is irreversible more than a generation before the last baby is born. Civilizations die.

So primed I was ready to write to dr. faheem younus on the principle that you catch more flies with honey than with vinigar. I could be sympathetic even if I could not compelely agree. But I found that to email him I had to establish an account. I looked for him on in the medical facutly of the University of Maryland but could not find him. So he must carry on without me. I’m probably too long winded for him anyway.

I think your remarks to him were courteous and to the point. I’m sorry the correspondance didn’t turn out better.

yes. it’s so rarely done that it’s really not worth discussing it. like you say, destructive. almost all populations avoid it.

@linton – “2) Inbreeding. That would be something like the obstinate maintaining of first cousing marriages over many genrations. My own data is that this is destructive. Fertility suffers.”

it does, but it doesn’t because people compensate for all the extra spontaneous abortions they have. they just stubbornly keep having children. check the population figures for places like pakistan, bangladesh, saudi arabia, yemen, egypt. consistent cousin marriage — even preferred fbd marriage, which gets you into the highest levels of inbreeding — and yet their population numbers skyrocketed over the last hundred years. cousin marriage didn’t put a dent in the increases.

@linton – “Bad genes should be getting eliminated regularly so I suspect that the damage is being done not by genetic effects but epigenetic effects.”

maybe. but there are plenty of bad genes in inbreeding populations. check out the arabs for just one example.

@linton – “If you don’t think that’s a problem consider the American Indians.”

i think the problem that the indians ran into was not one of population numbers — although that probably didn’t help — but the fact that they were close inbreeders and, therefore, were clannish/tribal and so could not work together as a united front against the invading europeans. they were too busy fighting each other, sometimes with the white man as an ally, to realize what was happenening to them. that and a lower average iq (that never helps).

@linton – “4) Let’s call it balanced breeding. This I take it is more or less the Southern and the manorial level, averaging something like sixth or seventh cousins, again by the Icelandic definition. It permits widespread social grace, a stable population and romantic love.”

yes, but i don’t think southerners really did this. (~_^) back it up one level for them, i think (two in some pockets of appalachia).

@hbd chick. “02/02/2013 at 2:18 PM”
Thank you for a response thoughtful and right on target.
2) You point out rising populations in cousin marrying societies. True if less so these days. But in theory there should be a degree of average consanguinity in that zone where the birth rate gives a stable population.

4) You rightly point out that in the South we aren’t all at balanced breeding by any means. But there is a lot of frank outbreeding as well as pockets of inbreeding and a lot of optimal outbreeding, so maybe a few of us got it about right.

And many thanks for adopting my terminology for the nonce. I understand you better and that makes my brain feel good.

Lets miscegenate. Unless youre a ridiculously fat and ugly white bitch. Which you might be, considering you have enough spare time to write dumb shit like this down rather than raise kids…which ugly overweight uselss females are wont to do…

[edit: this is the sort of quality discussion we got on the ‘net ever since they let the NTs online. – h.chick]

@T “The American Indians had fewer people because they had inferior food production capabilities.” This is a merry jest, right? Squanto kept the pilgrims from starving. For centuries Indians farmed Long House Valley, something no European has even tried. The Aztec floating gardens in Mexico city were beyond the starved dreams of anybody in Europe. OK I fell for it. One for you.

@aswanny99@yahoo.com “Let’s miscegenate.” Wel-l-l. It i-i-is a free country still, so you are welcome to try it and encourage others so to do. Of course that means “marry one of another race.” But what the rest of your post does is to demonstrate “misogyny,” which is hatred of women. Not to suggest you didn’t say what you meant or to be critical in any way. Too much bad stuff out there to quibble over your immortal soul.

@linton – “Squanto kept the pilgrims from starving. For centuries Indians farmed Long House Valley, something no European has even tried. The Aztec floating gardens in Mexico city were beyond the starved dreams of anybody in Europe.”

linton, let’s keep a little perspective here. europeans would not have starved in the new world without the help of the indians since they (the europeans) had some of the most advanced farming techniques of the time. europeans haven’t farmed long house valley only because the climate changed since the indians were able to do it. their population collapsed when it was no longer possible for them to farm there, either. and the aztec floating gardens? very nice, but let’s not forget that some europeans (the dutch) farm the sea floor.

the indians were great and all that (they still are!) — but technologically — all things considered — they were way behind the europeans — and the east asians for that matter. even the central and south american indians who built great civilizations.

@hbd chick “let’s keep a little perspective here” Good points all. But I thought the Pilgrims were starving. Wiki says of Squanto “It is a commonly held belief that he helped them recover from an extremely hard first winter by teaching them the native method of maize cultivation. ” Maybe not. I wasn’t there. The article also says he had been in England, so maybe he had seem something of European farming.

I know the Long House Valley Indians are supposed to have been driven out by climate change, but the only available evidence suggests that the climate was better when they vanished than when they first started farming, although I do have some problems with that interpretation. What the climate has been there since I do not know.

Sure the Dutch were already farming land that needed the protection of dikes at the time of the Aztec zenith. But they do say that the Aztec gardens were most impressive, far beyond the accomplishments of the Europeans of the time. By and large I agree that the Europeans were more technolgically advanced; it was they who went to Mexico, not the Aztecs to Spain. And there was the small matter of firearms, war dogs, horses, steel armor and so forth. Cortez’s men even built a trebuchet, but it didn’t work out so well. The rock went straight up, came straight down and destroyed the machine. What really worked for Cortez, so far as I can make out, is that everybody else hated the Aztecs and rose to back the Spanish, which is an excellent example of Indians failing to unite against Europeans, a serious problem for them, I do agree.

@linton – “‘It is a commonly held belief that he helped them recover from an extremely hard first winter by teaching them the native method of maize cultivation.'”

well i’d like more proof than just “a commonly held belief,” the commoners being none too bright. (~_^) from the sounds of it, they had plenty of other foodstuffs to eat besides corn — cod, bass, other fish, waterfowl, turkeys, venison. they may have been hungry the first winter or two — big transition to move CONTINENTS in the 1600s — but i doubt they would’ve needed to learn to grow corn to survive. plus, the europeans knew how to farm — they didn’t need to learn that. (keep in mind the forces of political correctness out there wanting you to believe … well … a bunch of nonsense. use your common sense.)

@linton – “I know the Long House Valley Indians are supposed to have been driven out by climate change, but the only available evidence suggests that the climate was better when they vanished than when they first started farming, although I do have some problems with that interpretation. What the climate has been there since I do not know.”

see the link i provided.

@linton – “But they do say that the Aztec gardens were most impressive, far beyond the accomplishments of the Europeans of the time.”

i dunno. floating gardens are awesome, i agree. but clearing the seafloor to make yourself more land?! that’s just much more impressive to me. but maybe that’s just me.

@linton – “By and large I agree that the Europeans were more technolgically advanced; it was they who went to Mexico, not the Aztecs to Spain. And there was the small matter of firearms, war dogs, horses, steel armor and so forth.”

@hbd chick “see the link i provided” Yep. I followed the link. That’s the study all right. Look at figure 4. Blue line is tree ring width. Red is the population estimated from households. Notice that the population in earlly years has a number of stepwise increases. In one the popualtion more than doubles in a single year, not possible even if every woman in the valley had twins the same year. People are moving in. But if the population really is limited by the climate producing tree ring width, they are moving in only to starve. Not likely. Then after a pause the tree ring width obligingly rises. They are cultvating the trees. So the whole cause and effect relationship is reversed. Post hoc ergo propter hoc does not work but it’s possible. Pre hoc ergo propter hope isn’t even possible.

The population disappears. Assuming that climate is driving this, the valley could still support 400. In the early years with people moving in the climate would have permitted less than 100. Sorry. It won’t wash. These guys were good farmers. But no computers, space shuttles … quite so.

re: “This is bound to have an impact on an audience that prides itself on its secular, rational approach to life.”

Those who doubt this I think underestimate the diversity of the people who read the comments in left-liberal media. Take today’s David Brooks column on immigration reform. If you went by “reader picks” or “NYT picks” you would think the overwhelming majority of commenters agreed with Brooks’s main points. A reading of all the comments however quickly reveals it is just the other way around — and those who disagree evince facts and arguments to support their case.

NYT readers are more reasonable than the paper they read. I think the same applies to Huffington Post though I may be mistaken. It’s just they haven’t been exposed to the cousin marriage issue long enough to have an opinion. But don’t worry, they will.

@Linton
““The American Indians had fewer people because they had inferior food production capabilities.” This is a merry jest, right? Squanto kept the pilgrims from starving. For centuries Indians farmed Long House Valley, something no European has even tried. The Aztec floating gardens in Mexico city were beyond the starved dreams of anybody in Europe.”

So you’re saying the native americans had a higher *average* food production capacity over the whole land area?

.
“This is the way to get exponential growth…But they had two children while the Europeans had a dozen. They were buried under an avalanche of white flesh.”

1) I thought you were concerned with promoting fertility? As you say all those non (close) cousin marrying settlers were about the most fecund people in history producing very large numbers of healthy children.

2) If the settlers sucked at farming and yet still drowned the Indians in children how did they feed them all?

.
“Of course that means “marry one of another race.”

I think his name comes from “aswan” not “a swan” so i’m guessing an egyptian connection.

I think close cousin marriage *requires* greater levels of certain kinds of misogyny. If a woman is earmarked to marry a particular cousin then it becomes more necessary to constrain their other choices to prevent mishap.

Although perhaps best if the less polite posters – like me :) – make the point.
.
It seems to me the critical point of the exchange with Mr Younus is the people promoting first cousin marriage will try and deny the medical consequences of repeated close-cousin marriage and the important counter-meme – especially directed towards those inclined to go along with the idea for pro-diversity reasons or anti-christian reasons – is the end result will not be all happy-clappy multiculti goodness. What it actually means is lots of babies born with genetic defects and lots of women having pregnancies than they want just to get 2-3 healthy kids.

And for anyone who doesn’t care about that then think about the taxes to pay the resulting medical and special educational costs.

@g.w. – “It seems to me the critical point of the exchange with Mr Younus is the people promoting first cousin marriage will try and deny the medical consequences of repeated close-cousin marriage….”

what started to annoy me about what DR faheem younus said the more i thought about it was that he got the risk factor so wrong. HE’S A DOCTOR! — who apparently teaches at university.

so either 1) he’s really misinformed/clueless for a doctor — which is more than a little concerning, or 2) he’s misrepresenting the situation. (i mean that the risk of genetic disorders in a regularly inbreeding population is much higher than in a non-inbreeding population.)

“It seems to me the critical point of the exchange with Mr Younus is the people promoting first cousin marriage will try and deny the medical consequences of repeated close-cousin marriage”

Maybe so. But the critical point of the exchange between entire civilisations is that it is the Western Establishment which is denying the medical consequences.

Prof Bittles seems to be leading the cultural-accommodation line at the moment:

“Bittles believes that the media’s alleged ‘doubling of the death rates’ among children born to consanguineous parents is irresponsible and alarmist when data shows that only a relatively small number of children are affected. In terms of birth defects, he says the risks rise from about two per cent in the general population to four per cent when parents are closely related. Given the relatively small number of cases in which problems occur, Bittles supported better genetic screening services for those affected over any kind of ban or limit on first cousin marriages.” http://www.bionews.org.uk/page_69849.asp

“He supports better genetic screening services for those affected over any kind of ban or limit on first-cousin marriages. ‘It would be a mistake to ban it, people have been following consanguineous marriage practices for hundreds of generations and then we come along and say you are going to have to stop – no one will pay attention. I would go for selective screening it would be much more effective.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7404730.stm

on the other hand the link between cousin-marriage and intra-social violence may have potential to wake a few people up although the media-ban on discussing the worst crimes to ever occur in the UK seems to suggest that nothing can save the grace and stability (@Linton) of European Civilisation now.

***********

there’s an advert for tourism in the US on UK TV at the mo – at first I thought it was advertising tourism in Indonesia somewhere, then I thought maybe Brazil and then I saw the girls in head scarves and figured it was probably America, just as the words came into view.

@hbd chick “there isn’t a figure 4. -?- (there’s a table 4, but for some reason it won’t open for me.)” I’m sorry. How odd. You ought to be able to find the same graph (better scale, too) at nobabies.net December 21 of last year.

@greying wanderer “So you’re saying the native americans had a higher *average* food production capacity over the whole land area?” No. I’m just saying that their food production was adequate for their needs when the Europeans arrived and probably adequate when Indian numbers were greatly reduced.

” I thought you were concerned with promoting fertility?” Astute, but not really my angle. I think people sould be free to whatever degree possible, but they can only be free if they know what the results of their choices are likely to be. Personally I would prefer the “manorial” sort of demographics hbd chick likes, but since it’s pretty well what I grew up with going back a few generations I could be prejudiced.

“If the settlers sucked at farming and yet still drowned the Indians in children how did they feed them all?” The Puritans, so far as I know didn’t. People starved. Later they managed but I think they must have worked very hard.

“It seems to me the critical point of the exchange with Mr Younus is the people promoting first cousin marriage will try and deny the medical consequences of repeated close-cousin marriage” Alas I agree all the way on that one. I think informed choice is important, as I said.

@Big Nose Kate “on the other hand the link between cousin-marriage and intra-social violence may have potential to wake a few people up although the media-ban on discussing the worst crimes to ever occur in the UK seems to suggest that nothing can save the grace and stability (@Linton) of European Civilisation now.” The combination is media silence, high motivation among the incomers and low fetility among locals is, indeed scary. Do forgive me for saying this. But think about it. All those families with generations of first or close cousin marriages, there just has to be a degree of inbreeding depression. One day they will stop it. In the very first generation the depression vanishes. You have a population explosion of unimaginable strength, ten or fifteen children per woman. And it will last a couple of generations at least while the locals have dropped to one or below.
I have no suggestions on that. And you don’t even have to buy into my own data to see it. Demographically they are like a cocked gun. Please tell me I’m wrong. This is an opinion I’d really like to be proven wrong on. Getting shouted down would at least help.

@Linton One day they will stop it. In the very first generation the depression vanishes. You have a population explosion of unimaginable strength, ten or fifteen children per woman.

What you say suggests there will be an explosion and then the new population might start to recreate an open democratic society?

I like to believe that there is a general evolutionary process at work but like pass-the-parcel, no-one quite knows which gene pool will ultimately take the outbreeding-reciprocal-altruism-agricultural-diploma :) meme to perpetuity

There must be a statistical relationship between the value of benefits derived from UK policy through cousin marriage and, the increase in incidence over country of origin. That makes the the UK the biggest sponsor of cousin marriage in the world; FBD no less.

Reciprocal altruism = good neighbors? That’s got to be part of it. One can see that breaking down in the big cities to a certain extent. Anonymity is makes it hard to return a favor (except among mafiosi and grafting politicians — but then the know and remember each other). But nothing here as bad as that incident in China in which a toddler was left stranded in the street to be run over by cars: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15331773

@ Big Nose Kate “pass-the-parcel, no-one quite knows which gene pool will ultimately take the outbreeding-reciprocal-altruism-agricultural-diploma :) meme to perpetuity” If you mean frank outbreeding rather than balanced outbreeding, that’s a no brainer. Nobody. It’s self exterminating. If you mean manorial balanced oubreeding then it is indeed contradictory. I sniched this from wiki on Islam in the UK:

“36% of 16-24 year olds believe if a Muslim converts to another religion they should be punished by death, compared to 19% of 55+ year old Muslims. 59% of Muslims would prefer to live under British law, compared to 28% who would prefer to live under sharia law” It seems to leave room for anything you want to believe. The one thing you can be sure about the future is that it’s gonna come.

@big nose kate – “Prof Bittles seems to be leading the cultural-accommodation line at the moment….”

yes, he does. =/ i must get his new book to see what his reasoning (if there is any) is.

myself — i would’ve been ok with all of the cousin marriage bans in the u.s. being dropped — but only if we hadn’t have had so much immigration coming from south asia and other parts of the world where they practice regular cousin marriage. now i think the REMAINING 25 states need to institute bans!

(actually, all we need to do is stop all this mass immigration. ain’t holdin’ my breath on that one though….)

@linton – “All those families with generations of first or close cousin marriages, there just has to be a degree of inbreeding depression. One day they will stop it.”

but they’ve been marrying first cousins — as much as possible — in the arabian peninsula for at least two millennia. somehow they’re managing to cope with all of the effects of the inbreeding depression.

@luke – “One can see that breaking down in the big cities to a certain extent. Anonymity is makes it hard to return a favor….”

absolutely. but it’s not just the anonymity thing — it’s that, especially in a place like new york (or london), let’s say, chances are you’re going to be directing your reciprocal altruism to someone who’s just not very reciprocally altruistic. you’ll just be wasting your reciprocal altruism. those traits will pretty quickly be selected right out of the population.

@hbd chick “but they’ve been marrying first cousins — as much as possible — in the arabian peninsula for at least two millennia” If you accept that, then I suppose you can accept that it’s reasonably stable. Change it and things destabilize. Isn’t that right? And if has caused inbreeding depression that means increasaed fertility. Stand back. Hold your ears. Here comes the real population explosion. Surely there is a reason to think it’s not going to happen.

@hbd chick @ hbd chick. “you’ll just be wasting your reciprocal altruism” Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said, “If you find a starving dog and make him well fed and prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principle difference between dogs and men.”?

By comparing Arab and Indian inbreeding and violence patterns to Appalachian inbreeding and violence patterns, you probably *could* convince a lot of the HuffPonies that banning cousin marriage is a good idea. Don’t bring in numerical data – just point out how the same social ills which afflict Arabia and Acton also afflict Appalachia, and show how they proceed from the same root.

@anthony “the same social ills which afflict Arabia and Acton also afflict Appalachia, and show how they proceed from the same root.” Sure. Screw up the fertility of Appalachia. Europeans have had their day in the sun. Time to pack up.

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